HMCS Winnipeg in action against pirates again...

...but this time they took over the merchant ship:

Canadian warship in the thick of latest Somali pirate hijacking

File photo of the HMCS Winnipeg as it moves out of Esquimalt Harbor in Victoria, BC. Photograph by: Darren Stone, Victoria Times Colonist

A Canadian warship was again in the thick of the action Tuesday after Somali pirates launched a brazen, moonlit hijacking of a Greek-owned ship in the Gulf of Aden.

A helicopter dispatched from HMCS Winnipeg made contact with the MV Irene E.M. moments after it had been taken over by Somali pirates, a NATO spokesperson said.

“(The helicopter) did manage to communicate with the ship, but it had actually been hijacked,” said Shona Lowe. “Everything happened very quickly.

Lowe said HMCS Winnipeg sent the helicopter immediately after the Canadian frigate received a distress signal from the St. Vincent and the Grenadines-flagged merchant ship which was travelling to India from Jordan.

“It was sent as soon as the distress signal went out,” Lowe said in an interview with Canwest News Service Tuesday morning.

HMCS Winnipeg was about 88 kilometres away when the distress call was issued by the hijacked ship, making it the closest NATO vessel at the time of the incident, said Lowe. A British ship was also nearby.

Lowe said NATO continues to monitor the situation and further involvement by HMCS Winnipeg depends on the demands of the situation as it unfolds. She said the helicopter has since returned to the Canadian frigate.

The Somali pirates hijacked the ship three minutes after it sent out the distress call, NATO Lieutenant Commander Alexandre Fernandes told a Reuters reporter aboard the Portuguese warship NRP Corte-Real.

"There was only three minutes between the alarm and the hijack," said Fernandes.

The Greek merchant marine ministry said the Irene E.M.’s crew were all Filipinos.

"There are hostages, so now we will shadow and monitor the situation," Fernandes said.

Foreign navies are patrolling the seas off Somalia. But the pirates have continued to evade capture, driving up insurance costs and defying the world’s most powerful militaries.

The latest hijacking by Somalia-based pirates comes in the wake of Sunday’s high-seas drama when an American ship captain was freed after his three Somali captors were cut down by three bullets fired by U.S. snipers. Two days earlier, French forces raided a hijacked yacht, killing two pirates. One French hostage was also killed.

Somali pirates have since vowed revenge against U.S. and French citizens.

HMCS Winnipeg, which is part of the NATO-led counter-piracy mission known as Operation Allied Protector, managed to disrupt suspected pirate operations twice this month.

Late last week, the frigate sent out its Sea King helicopter after receiving a distress call of an apparent pirate attack. The helicopter located the suspected pirates during the nighttime operation and boarded a skiff along with a larger boat to search for weapons, which were believed to have been thrown overboard before the Canadians arrived.

On April 4, HMCS Winnipeg thwarted another attempted pirate attack when it spotted three pirate skiffs closing in on an Indian merchant vessel. The Sea King helicopter was dispatched and flew between the threatened vessel and the pirates who backed off.